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Yuyang Zhang / Echo

• Second-year BA Games Design and Art student at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton.
• This portfolio follows my ARTD2170 Games Design work across six weeks, from early ideas to prototypes, playtests and the final pitch.
• I have been exploring first-person movement and rhythm. I am interested in how controls, sound and visual feedback help a player understand what they are doing.
• My Miro board

Rift Runner

• Rift Runner is a single-player FPS set in a world of machines. The player moves through combat arenas, collects supplies and chooses upgrades.
• The project grew from an early fast-movement shooter into a game with timing rewards for dashing and weapon use. Class feedback helped me work on instructions, difficulty and the clarity of those rewards. View my itch.io page and pitch below.
• Rift Runner by Echo0106
• View the pitch and gameplay video

Explore the portfolio

• Weekly documentation: ideas, class work, feedback and changes across weeks 1–6.
• Personal Development Plan: my summer plan, development priorities, tools and weekly reflection.
• Prototypes and Tests: Rift Runner, Prism Relay and Beat Foundry, with gameplay screenshots and links to the playtest records.
• Pitch: the full presentation and gameplay video.
• Prototype references and Rift Runner research: the games and design choices that informed my work.

Weekly records

• Week 1: Emotion and idea generation
• Week 2: Design intention and peer feedback
• Week 3: Prototype direction and references
• Week 4: World, tone and design pillars
• Week 5: Playtesting rhythm and the HUD
• Week 6: Pitch evaluation and development

AI use declaration

• I acknowledge the use of Youdao Dictionary/Translation and Google Translate to translate content and check English wording for this portfolio. I also used ChatGPT to help organise notes.
• Youdao Dictionary/Translation. Used for Chinese–English translation and checking words and phrases so I could express my notes and feedback in English.
• Google Translate. Used to translate content between Chinese and English and compare wording.
• ChatGPT. Used to summarise feedbacks, revise English wording, and find relevant tutorial resources.